Emotional Violence against Women in Public Sphere of Bangladesh: Youth Narratives and Policy Options
Keywords:
Violence against women, Emotional violence, Psychological violence, Virtual violence, Social media, Public SphereAbstract
This paper analyses the occurrences of ‘emotional violence’ against women in the ‘public sphere’ of Bangladesh. Most common acts of violence in public space in Bangladesh are gossiping about someone, staring straight at the women, passing comments impersonally but indicatively, pulling scarf or touching indecently in public places and transportation. In the virtual world, common acts of violence are sending ‘indecent’ messages, pictures, videos and web links to random women, bullying someone on Facebook, opening a fake Facebook account using a picture of a woman. These so-called ‘fun activities’ for some people bring emotional sufferings for women. In most cases, abused women ignore the incidences. Based on the findings, we argue that the practice of patriarchy is embedded in relation to other forms of hierarchy and domination, which always renders men a higher social position compared to women. Thus, the feeling of committing a violent act and getting away without any consequence creates a condition of new violence. We have found that the male respondents are more ignorant about laws preventing VAW compared to females. In protesting and taking legal initiatives, however, women face some challenges imposed by the family and society.
Published
Issue
Section
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with and acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non -exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (i.e. Post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online after the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.